Obi: Advocacy on Women’s Rights Will Address Gender-based Violence

Ugo Aliogo and Loveth Chinagorom, engaged the Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria, Mrs. Ene Obi, on scaling public investments in agriculture, and the issues of gender-based violence, as well as the cholera response project in Bauchi State, among other issues. Excerpts

ActionAid is currently working in Bursari LGA of Yobe State and plans have been concluded to start work in Marte, Abadam and Guzamah LGAs, Borno State. What is your assessment of the living conditions of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in those areas? Are you collaborating with any organisation or agency of government to carry out your intervention efforts?

The conflict in the North-east of Nigeria has lasted for over a decade. The peak of the crisis was between 2009 and 2016. There have been improvements on all sides including security, response to the need of the people who are displaced and living in camps or host communities and even those who are not displaced but have been largely affected by the insurgency.

One of the major concerns of the current Governor of Borno State is the destruction of rural life in Borno. As of now, Aid agencies such as ActionAid have continued to provide life-saving emergency support to those in great need, and also the support that helps the communities recover and build back with dignity.

ActionAid believes in working together with the affected persons, the government, sister organisations and this has remained integral in our approach. We are working with community groups, displaced persons, various state governments in the Northeast and partnering with state, national and international actors. Just to point out that we had plans of working in Marte, Abadam and Guzamala with support from the World Food Programme (WFP) but due to access constraints, in consultation with the state government, we had to put on hold those plans for now. We are currently supporting with food assistance in Bursari LGA of Yobe State.

How much effort is ActionAid putting in place to tackle food security of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Marte, Abadam and Guzamah LGAs, Borno State and Busari in Yobe State? In terms of improving their conditions, are you providing psycho-socio support to these IDPs and what is the response level like so far?

ActionAid Nigeria has worked to improve the food security needs of households affected by the insurgency. Specifically for our food security and livelihood interventions, we are currently working in Jere, Konduga, Kaga, MMC in Borno State and Bursari LGA in Yobe State. And like I said earlier, we have plans of going into Guzamala, Abadam and Marte but had to suspend those due to access constraints. We are supporting communities with livelihood, trainings, and in-kind food assistance. We always integrate Psychosocial Support (PSS) into all our programmes; including standalone PSS programmes.

We have seen great results in our work; children who were severely malnourished come into our programme and become happy children because they have been supported with nutrition supplements. We have been able to place children into foster homes, those who were separated from their families and were unaccompanied. The results are enormous, and we are very happy to do this.

We are currently supporting the operationalisation of the Humanitarian Development and Peace Nexus across the BAY States (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) because the region we believe must overcome her current challenges and build back even better and for this to happen, all actors and sectors must work together.

There is an emergency cholera response project in Bauchi State. What is the level of commitment in addressing the health challenge? Would you say appreciable progress has been recorded so far, and are you impressed with the interventions you are making in Bauchi State or is there need to rejig your strategies?

The Cholera outbreak in Bauchi State reached a crescendo in May 2021, when the daily average positive case was at 120. Prior to this time, the state government and some other stakeholders had mapped out strategies on how to combat the continued spread of the disease, but with little or no funds to action out the strategy.

With the timely intervention from ActionAid Nigeria emergency response and funding from Start Fund, there has been a drastic reduction in the daily infection rate. According to the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Agency, responsible for the coordination of interventions, the current daily infection rate has dropped from between 60 – 80.

ActionAid Nigeria grassroot sensitisation, household disinfection, engagement with relevant authorities, trainings and deployment of strategic communication played key role in the current reduction in the spread of the disease. The highest record of infection rate was recorded in Bauchi LGA and this infection rate has reduced because of the intervention.
However, just like any other emergency intervention, ActionAid Nigeria’s Cholera intervention in Bauchi State has a short time limit, which has currently elapsed, but we are working with other relevant state and non-state actors to maintain the tempo even as we work to seek more intervention funds towards the eradication of the scourge.

In November 2019, you continued your intervention project on migration in Edo State tagged: ‘Dare to Hope’. What was the focus of the project, and what was the level of success achieved in the first phase of the project?

The Dare to Hope project is focused on building economic alternatives to migration for young people who have returned from destination countries such as Italy and Spain (and potential migrants).

As you are aware, it is a fact that Nigeria currently is ranked the fifth nation in the world for number of citizens migrating to Europe in search of better living conditions or in the effort to escape poverty and conflicts.

The leading cause for this huge movement of a portion of the Nigerian population is the search for income alternatives by Nigerians for themselves and their families. Current statistics show that over 50% of Nigerian youths are either unemployed or underemployed. For us, this is rooted in the conviction that unemployment represents one of the main causes of forced migration.

The creation of an alternative to migration through socio-economic development, sensitization and conflict prevention project was conceptualized and implemented specifically to tackle the root causes of irregular migration such as unemployment; by training, equipping and mentoring youths on agriculture, auto- mobile repairs, carpentry/furniture, tailoring, shoe-making, bag-making, cosmetics, aluminum works so that they can engage in economically viable and productive activities. The second phase of the project is scaling up to reach more of the young people (returnees inclusive) who are susceptible to poverty or crisis-induced migration.

How do we scale public investments in agriculture both from the political and budget commitment angles?

Scaling public investments in agriculture requires moving from policy to action. As approved by the 44th National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD); the three tiers of government should commit 10 per cent of their annual budget to the agriculture sector to meet the 10 per cent Maputo/Malabo Declaration required to support at least 6 per cent growth rate for the sector as postulated in the CAADP framework.

There should be political will to allocate at least 10 per cent of annual budgets and actuals of revenues to the agriculture sector with appropriate budget lines so that Nigeria will be on track in the next Biennial Reporting to the African Union Heads of States and Government in line with the Malabo Declaration and Commitments of 2014.

Federal and state governments should allocate more public investments in agriculture to address the strategic areas of investments that would increase the agricultural GDP to at least 6 per cent. The strategic areas of investments include extension services, access to credit, women in agriculture, youth in agriculture, appropriate labour-saving technologies, inputs, post-harvest losses reduction supports (processing facilities, storage facilities, trainings, market access, and others), Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture (CRSA)/Agroecology, research and development, monitoring and evaluation, as well as coordination.

Access to credit and financial services (from government and nongovernmental channels) by smallholder farmers particularly women are very poor at an average of 43 per cent in Nigeria. The criteria to access formal financial credits schemes and programmes can neither be understood nor met by over 70 per cent of smallholder women farmers. This is due to high level of bureaucracy; complexity of application processes, failure of state and local government to provide application supports to farmers, poor literacy level of most of the women, and the failure of the credit managers to adopt credit models that take cognisance of the farmers’ realities and take advantage of the traditional savings cooperatives which these women already belong to.

FMARD, states ministries of agriculture, and local government councils should play an active role in ensuring more public awareness on the various agricultural credit schemes in the country. They should create yearly budget line with the agriculture budget on strengthening access to credit to offer handholding technical assistant to smallholder farmer cooperatives especially women cooperatives to ensure proper documentation of applications, meeting loan criteria, make loan submissions, coordinating loan management, and overseeing repayment programmes.

The states and local government councils should better coordinate and play an interface role between the smallholder farmers and credit administrators. This is another window where Public-Private Partnership can come in and State and LGAs should explore this window.

Government should invest in youth-friendly agriculture as a means of ensuring sustainable food security and as a means of reducing the alarming unemployment rate among them.

How should government strengthen accountability and transparency in the Home-Grown School feeding Programme (HGSFP)? Are you impressed so far with the way government is handling it?

The best way to strengthen the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is for the government, at all levels, to strengthen its monitoring structures. The experience of the series of sharp practices noticed in the programme calls for this.

Secondly, the government needs to sign the Social Investment Programme (SIP) into law so that successive governments can sustain the robust and highly beneficial programme. Thirdly, the government must do everything possible to ensure that there is no break in terms of making payment to the cooks, because long delays affect pupils’ attendance in schools.

I am not really impressed by the way the government is handling the programme and not pleased with many citizens who are truncating the system. Lack of proper monitoring and delay in making payments to the cooks is seriously dragging the programme back. Citizens must take responsibility as well to ensure transparency and accountability in the process. Sometimes, the system can be truncated at the state level so all stakeholders must work together for more success to be achieved.

Can you give an insight into your work on social justice and governance accountability?

A good example of our work on social justice and government accountability is what we are doing with the Promoting Accountability and Transparency in the School Feeding Programme (PATS-F) PATS-F project. I believe that we are doing well to ensure that the child gets the rights and opportunities he/she deserves. The pupils deserve the right to education, therefore every effort of the government at ensuring that the child attends school is highly commendable and so, everyone has the right to hold the government accountable to ensure that the right thing is done, which is what we are supporting in the PATS-F. Our programme aims at ‘opening the doors of access and opportunity for everyone, particularly those in greatest need’.

The work we do from our governance thematic as well as Women’s Rights thematic areas respond to so many areas including series of projects on anti-corruption, public finance analysis and engagement with the parliament at different levels, gender-based violence, promoting women’s voices in representation and leadership, youth-focused interventions, tax justice, social mobilization, girl child education in breaking barriers, working with people with disabilities, work on elections, and using human rights-based approach to all the work we do.

All of the above has specific projects addressing the issues, but we do all these engaging government at all levels, government agencies, CSOs, donors, development partners and relevant stakeholders. We work to strengthen the capacity of the vulnerable groups to claim their rights and we stand in solidarity with them.

What is the level of cooperation from state actors?

As aforementioned, the state actors have been very supportive of the programme. They take proactive measures at addressing issues emanating from every report we share with them.

Why did you embark on effective tax provision for public education projects, and what progress has been recorded so far from the project?

ActionAid Nigeria embarked on progressive tax provisioning as part of its advocacy and campaign work on fair taxation. A research by ActionAid in 2016 had revealed revenue losses from five oil and gas companies; the research showed that 3.3 billion dollars were lost to harmful tax incentives granted to these companies.

ActionAid Education financing work is hinged on the AA 4S framework which advocates for increase in the size of the national budget and increase in the share allocation to the education sector to make education Available, Accessible, Affordable and Adaptable to all irrespective of social status, gender and race. To ensure this, taxation has been identified as one of the sustainable means of domestic revenue mobilisation hence the need to work on the gaps that lead to leakages in the tax system to ensure tax provisioning for public services that are gender-responsive.

The success recorded so far includes the increased tax education and awareness for citizens to understand the importance of taxation as a sustainable means of domestic revenue. Secondly, the tax reforms in some of the states like Sokoto, for instance, have led to the review of obsolete tax laws for an automated tax system thereby reducing the revenue leakages at the state level, leading to an increase in the share to key sectors including education. The Director Payee who is now the Executive Director Strategy and Planning confirmed revenue from the tax has increased from the figure of last year.

Following series of capacity building activities on fiscal responsibility and the advocacy for increased funding in the states for key government functionaries, we have witnessed an increase in budgetary allocation to the education sector in Lagos and Sokoto States, we have also provided support in developing an inclusive education policy and advocating for girls and other marginalised children. Though the inclusive education policies have been reviewed in Lagos state, Sokoto has a policy that is still undergoing stakeholders’ input before the executive assent.

We have also received the openness and support in the States, but the capacity to continuously drive the change at the level of government has been a challenge. Our intervention has continued to demand for accountability in the budgeting process to ensure scrutiny and to ensure budgetary allocations are sensitive in addressing the gaps that hinder children from accessing free, quality inclusive education for all. There are still challenges in terms of bureaucratic bottlenecks and lack of political will to ensure accountability and good governance.

What are the new trends in public sector wage bills in Nigeria and its impact on national development?

There is ongoing research on public sector wage bills, which will be published as soon as it is completed. Discussions are ongoing with the labour movement on the above. The research tends to unveil the factors underlying wage determination, including policy considerations and economic reforms, its nexus with public service delivery and poverty eradication.

ActionAid’s work on public sector wages is driven by the need to engender responsive public service delivery. The recruitment and adequate remuneration of teachers, nurses, doctors, and other social services workers are some of the urgent actions required to stem the tide of inaccessibility and low-quality public services. This is in the face of coercive International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy prescriptions that freeze wages, embargoes employment, cut back on essential subsidies that all undermine efforts at dealing with the issues of inequality, deepening poverty, and social justice.

Between 2005-2007, ActionAid worked to challenge the IMF’s use of public sector wage bill caps as conditions attached to loans, which led to the IMF backing down and withdrawing caps as conditions attached to loans. But repeatedly the IMF is reverting to providing coercive policy advice to constrain public sector wage bills and resistance by nations have waned considerably as the COVID-19 impact takes effect on public resources.

In January 2019, you started a project on mobilising action against the abolition of infanticide in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). How many communities are you implementing this campaign and what is the level of compliance?

We are implementing the Mobilising Actions Towards the Abolition of Infanticide (MATAI) in the FCT and in 57 communities located in five Area Councils of the FCT. So far, in working with multi-sectoral stakeholders including the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), to ensure implementation and monitoring of existing legal and policy frameworks that address infanticide and raise awareness, especially among practising communities.

We have trained over 79 social workers on the contents of existing international and regional laws including the Child Rights Act (CRA 2003) and worked with over 102 children including the FCT Children’s Parliament to raise awareness and build leadership to end the practice.

ActionAid Nigeria has also supported the set-up of Child Rights Implementation Committees (CRICs) in Kwali and Abaji area Councils and 57 communities have been supported to select Community Advocates Against Infanticide (CAAIs) to monitor the practice of Infanticide in their communities and who have all been trained on their roles in line with the CRA 2003.

Similarly, we have been able to set up and continuously strengthen case management systems in the five Area councils where we work to safeguard unborn babies and infants susceptible to being victims of infanticide, as well as those that are currently ostracized. These systems are run through already existing structures like the CRIC who meet on a quarterly basis with the community leaders and advocates as well as other stakeholders to handle children’s issues and carry out referrals for those beyond their capacity.

Furthermore, we have also increased the skills-set and knowledge of 57 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) spread across the 57 communities where we work on new techniques in taking delivery to reduce post-delivery mortality and improve Maternal wellbeing in their communities.

Additionally, we have also built resilience in over 165 children currently ostracised at the Vine Heritage Home (VHH) by providing them with improved care, nutrition, and accommodation.

There is a new sprawling complex under construction for the rescued children by ActionAid Nigeria with funding support from the European Union and ActionAid’s Community Sponsorship. This new structure upon delivery by the contractor at the end of September 2021 will provide the children with a more befitting environment complemented with fishponds, vegetable and poultry farm as well as classes for toddlers and a clinic.

What is the situation of infanticide practices in communities around FCT?

Though, the MATAI project has experienced outcomes like some communities are now coming to request for their hitherto ostracised children by way of reunion since 2019, and reports of an increase in service uptake at some Primary Health Centres, our intervention has led to a drastic drop in the killing of children.

The communities knowing that they are being monitored have shunned the killing of the affected children, but ostracization is still rife in many of these communities. Summarily, it is safe to say that there is considerable level of compliance except for some discreet measures of ostracization and discrimination of these children that we must still continually deal with. There is still a lot of work to be done to change the mindset of the people.

Where are we as a country in the issue of Gender-Based Violence?

As a country, we still have a lot of work to do in reducing Gender-Based Violence (GBV) to the barest minimum. The country has moved significantly from a state of ignorance on issues of gender-based violence to a state of proactiveness and intentionality, combating this menace; this is attributed to the unrelenting effort of civil society organisations who have gone to the nooks and crannies of the country with advocacies and sensitisations on GBV prevention and protection of women’s rights including mitigation.

Today, we have key stakeholders committing to and taking action to prevent GBV in their various spaces from community level upwards. State and Federal governments are also playing their part through the passage and implementation of laws to prevent GBV.

Many state governments have signed the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, (VAPP) however, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that GBV intervention is still not prioritised as it should be in Nigeria because it took nationwide agitations before survivors could access services. This is a significant weakness that cannot be overlooked in our institutional response to GBV as the country still struggles with recognising GBV response as part of essential services.

A country whose women and girls suffer more because of an unexpected change in events should work towards strengthening systems and infrastructure to ensure that no situation predisposes her women and girls to increased violence. We also need to intensify efforts on consistent behaviour change interventions at the grassroots where upholders of customs and traditions are ignorantly enforcing GBV. This will mean addressing the issue from the root. Very few shelters are available for victims and this is critical for the rescue of many women suffering from GBV.

Would you say that we have made appreciable progress in GBV?

It is appropriate to say that we have made significant progress. For us in Nigeria, the COVID-19 pandemic can be referred to as a blessing in disguise because it exposed first-hand how deeply rooted GBV is and how much it has been entrenched in our society.

The alarming rate of incidences revealed the urgency of the need for passage of laws to protect women and girls. Since then, a “State of Emergency” has been declared on GBV and there has been increased political will to pass and domesticate appropriate laws to combat GBV. This has resulted in an increase in the reportage of incidences as survivors are becoming more confident that their perpetrators can be disciplined.

Although the justice system may seem slow and staggered, perpetrators no longer go free because the laws have created an enabling environment for the prosecution of cases. Civil Society organisations are also working tirelessly to support government institutions as evident in the creation of community referral pathways to ensure services get to the grassroots.

However, rising insecurity in form of kidnappings, banditry, farmers-herders crisis, communal clashes, militancy coupled with a spike in bouts of mass abductions may reverse or stagnate the progress we are recording. Women and girls are always at the receiving end of these atrocities as they become easy targets for predators. Insecurity, if not appropriately tackled, may nullify this progress.

Are we implementing the appropriate legislation to address the issue?

Yes. We all recall that it took 14 years of advocacy for the country to pass the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Bill into law. This is so because the law safeguards the rights of victims of violence, in addition to fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution.

It is considered appropriate in the fight against GBV because it provides a legislative and legal framework for the criminalization of various acts like rape, physical injury on a person, female genital mutilation, emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse, and political violence.

We are happy that about 21 States have domesticated the law and we encourage them to move on to implementation because without a framework for action, the law will not be adequately utilised. We also look forward to when all 36 states would have adopted the law.

What has ActionAid Nigeria done to address the issue of gender-based violence in the country?

In the fight against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), ActionAid Nigeria has been actively engaging Women’s Rights Organisations with a view to building a formidable force of women’s rights movement in Nigeria who are adequately equipped to combat GBV.

Since 2019, we have established partnerships with 134 women’s rights organisations who have been granted to implement GBV interventions across 19 states and the FCT. Of this number, 112 are consistently receiving grants to implement activities and technical support to enhance their programmatic skills.

So far, 20,712 women and girls have been reached directly with various GBV prevention and protection services including trainings and sensitisation across the response and care continuum.

Our partners work in 52 local government areas and 303 communities. Through the grant we provide, our partners engage in various policy influencing activities for the implementation of laws that protect women and girls from violence, creation of GBV referral pathways, and GBV protection services among others.